Boy George dedicates a song to the victims of 7 October

“You say genocide, I say war”. Thus begins the pop-reggae song that Boy George has dedicated to the victims of the Hamas attack on 7 October: it is titled “We Will Dance Again”, the same phrase used by Israelis to express hope and solidarity following the attack on 7 October, and which was also the title of an acclaimed documentary on the event; in the video, the phrase appears in Hebrew. “We will dance again”, in reference to the attack on the Nova music festival where participants were “murdered for the crime of dancing”: 344 civilians and 34 members of the Israeli security forces died, whilst a further 44 people were taken hostage.

The backlash was immediate and fierce. “Disgusting”, “shameful”, “horrible” and “monster” were just some of the insults flying around on social media, betraying the irritation at what is perceived as a betrayal by an icon of the ‘woke’ movement. His real name is George Alan O’Dowd. Born in London on 14 June 1961 to a Dublin-born bricklayer and a woman who had left the prudish Ireland of the time to escape the stigma of being an unwed mother – and whom his father beat even whilst she was pregnant with him – Boy George has described his childhood as “a sad Irish song”. An openly gay man and a drug addict to such an extent that in 1986 The Sun had predicted he had only eight weeks to live, an icon of androgyny and sexual diversity, in 1988 he sang the hard-hitting protest song “No Clause 28” against a law pushed through by Margaret Thatcher to ban the “promotion of homosexuality in schools”: a track made all the more provocative by the inclusion of an audio clip featuring the voice of the then Prime Minister. Culture Club was the name of the band with which he rose to fame: ‘cultural club’ in homage to its pioneering spirit of inclusion and representation, being made up of a singer of Irish origin, a black Jamaican bassist, a Jewish drummer and an English guitarist.

Her other pseudonyms and the groups she was part of also served as ‘descriptive names’ for the genre. ‘Angela Dust’ is, in fact, a clear allusion to the English expression ‘angels’ dust’, a reference to the hallucinogen phencyclidine. ‘Jesus Loves You’ was a musical project that blended religious elements from various sources. ‘Dubversive’ combined ‘dub’ – meaning ‘double’ and also the name of a reggae subgenre – with ‘subversive’. ‘The Twin’ – the twin or twins – revisits the theme of the double. And in 2025, she also launched a scathing attack on J.K. Rowling. Five years earlier, the author of “Harry Potter” had expressed the view that only those born biologically female can identify as such. “Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are,” commented Emma Watson, who had played Hermione Granger in the films based on the series. “Like other people who have never experienced adulthood without the shadow of wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life that she is unaware of just how ignorant she is,” the writer had replied. At that point, Boy George had in turn commented: “Who cares what J.K. Boring [the English word ‘boring’ means ‘tedious’] thinks about anything? She’s the most boring of the boring. My real life couldn’t care less about her fiction. I’m with Emma Watson. She’s a ‘fire horse’. Rowling is a ‘wooden snake’.” But the two had already had other clashes in the past, during which the singer had repeatedly accused the writer of homophobia.

Boy George’s back catalogue also includes ‘The War Song’, with which Culture Club reached number two in the UK charts in 1984, and whose chorus went: ‘War is stupid and people are stupid / And love means nothing in certain strange circles’. But now the lyrics of this latest song seem, in part, to correct that assertion. “When you’re under attack, that’s what the army’s for,” sings Boy George, who later adds: “when I know you want to kill us all, every last one of us”. The chorus repeats: “There’ll be no war. But if you ever feel confused, I’m on the side of the Jews. I don’t feel brave, I just need to act like a human being”.

Having evidently anticipated the criticism it would receive, the song also contains a dig at the pro-Palestinian movement and at musicians who have taken a stand against Israel. “You condemn the Jews, with selective memory. Musicians waving flags, bleating like sheep. The propaganda fuelled by the internet seems so weak,” reads another passage from the lyrics.